This blog site is a place for Anna Jaworski, author of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome: A Handbook for Parents and My Brother Needs an Operation, and editor of The Heart of a Mother and The Heart of a Father, to keep readers updated on important news related to Baby Hearts Press and important information for the heart community. For more information about Baby Hearts Press, please visit us at http://www.babyheartspress.com.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Joining Hands

"Hi Anna, is there a possibility if we can join hands with your initiative . . ." began a Facebook message that changed someone's life.

Farhan Ahmad and I communicated with one another on Saturday, just two days after I wrote the blog "Join or Die" and he wanted to know if I could help him. This is what it's all about, dear heart friends. It's all about us joining hands and helping one another.

Farhan Ahmad told me that he was the father of a little girl with a serious heart defect. After his daughter needed life-saving heart surgery, he realized (to his dismay) that there was no cardiac children's hospital close to home. He wondered how many other children in his country needed help who couldn't get that help simply because they lived too far away from a treatment facility and/or didn't have the money for such procedures.

". . . we are a not for profit organization, trying to build a free children cardiac hospital in Lahore, Pakistan," Farhan Ahmad wrote.

The amazing thing about the story is that everyone who reads this blog can help a needy child in Pakistan have a life-saving heart surgery. Simply go to this URL: https://www.facebook.com/chhri.org.pk and click Like. For every 500 Likes they get on Facebook, they will receive the funds to pay for a child's heart surgery.

That was what Farhan Ahmad wrote to me about just a handful of days ago. There were already over 400 Likes -- in fact, they were pretty close to 500, but they weren't there yet. They had already funded 14 children's surgeries through other donations. If we could get to 500 Likes, they would receive the funds they needed for another life-saving surgery.

I got busy! I wrote about this worthwhile cause on my Facebook page, I tweeted about it. I contacted everyone I thought might care and I watched the numbers climb.

Before the end of the day the Facebook page had well over 500 Likes. Another child saved. Countless lives touched.

This is what it's all about, dear friends. If we join hands, if we work together, if we love one another -- we can save lives.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to Like this page. Thank you for working together to help save a life. Please share this information with others. When they make it to 1000 Likes, they'll have yet another surgery paid for. It costs you nothing but a few precious moments . . . a few heartbeats . . . and the click of a computer key. If only everything in life were so simple!